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MLB Notebook: Runs at a premium in playoffs

MLB Notebook: Runs at a premium in playoffs

Of the 22,873 hits all-time in postseason contests, 2,464 of them have come in the seventh inning. Of those, 334 were delivered with the score tied, and 111 of those put the hit-maker's team ahead.

Of those tie-breaking hits, 17 of them opened the scoring, and four of those hits produced the only run of the game. Two of those four were home runs, and one of those came courtesy of a player (Mike Napoli ) doing his work for the Boston Red Sox.

2013 American League Championship Series: Red Sox at Tigers, Game 3
Holding Detroit to 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, the Red Sox (whose batters were 0-for-4 in that situation) got a seventh-inning solo home run from Napoli and defeated the Tigers, 1-0. With the victory -- the 46th 1-0 game in postseason history -- Boston took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

The Red Sox have now won three 1-0 postseason games, with all three coming on the road. In Game 1 of the 1918 World Series, they got an RBI single from Stuffy McInnis and a six-hitter from Babe Ruth to beat the Cubs. In Game 1 of the 1986 Fall Classic, Bruce Hurst and Calvin Schiraldi combined on a four-hitter, and the lone run crossed the plate after an error.

• This game marked the 11th postseason contest in which a solo homer represented the only run of the game. Among those, this was the sixth in which the road team was victorious. The most recent before Tuesday occurred in Game 3 of the 2001 AL Division Series, when the Yankees' Jorge Posada homered in the fifth and Mike Mussina and Mariano Rivera combined on a six-hitter to beat the Athletics.

• John Lackey (6 2/3 innings, four hits, eight K's) and the Boston bullpen supported the six-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts. The Red Sox have now authored 11 team shutouts in their postseason history, with the 12 K's in this one the most. The previous high in a shutout was 11 K's, first generated in Game 2 of the 1903 World Series against Pittsburgh, then matched in Game 1 of the 2008 ALCS against the Rays.

• Koji Uehara fanned two in his 1 1/3 innings to close out the win, and he has a pair of multiple-inning saves in 2013. The most for a Red Sox pitcher in one postseason was Jonathan Papelbon's four in 2007. Dick Drago also had two in 1975.

• The Tigers' pitching staff -- behind Justin Verlander's 10 K's in eight innings -- tallied 11 strikeouts in the game. Detroit increased its total for the 2013 postseason to 100 K's in eight games. The Rangers' 150 K's (in 16 games) in '10 stands as the top mark for a postseason.

The Tigers have fanned at least 11 batters in four straight games. The streak is the longest in a single postseason.

• Verlander has fanned at least 10 batters in all three of his games this postseason, with the three straight 10-plus-strikeout games matching Bob Gibson (1967-'68) and Cliff Lee (2010) for the longest streaks in playoff history.

Verlander and Lee in 2010 are the only pitchers with three double-digit strikeout games in a single postseason. Verlander now also has a record six double-digit strikeout games in his postseason career. He had been tied with Lee, Gibson and Randy Johnson.

• There have been seven shutouts during the 2013 postseason, with four of them ending with a 1-0 score. The seven shutouts are tied with 2001 for the third most since 1995. There were nine in 2012 and eight in '10.

The four 1-0 games are tied for the most with the 1991 postseason. That year, the Pirates and Braves played three 1-0 games in the National League Championship Series, and then the Twins defeated the Braves, 1-0, in Game 7 of the World Series. From 1903-68, before League Championship Series play, the '49 and '66 Fall Classics each produced two 1-0 games.

2013 National League Championship Series: Cardinals at Dodgers, Game 4
The Cardinals banged out the first two home runs of the 2013 NLCS, and with longballs from Matt Holliday and Shane Robinson, defeated the Dodgers, 4-2. St. Louis is up, 3-1, in the series.

St. Louis improved to 34-6 all-time when homering at least twice in a postseason game, and has now won seven straight such games. The Cards' most recent loss in a multihomer effort took place in Game 4 of the 2011 NLCS, when Milwaukee doubled St. Louis up (in runs), 4-2. From 1926-2000, the Cardinals won 15 straight games when homering twice.

• Holliday's two-run blast in the third inning and Robinson's pinch-hit shot in the seventh inning gives St. Louis 157 all-time postseason home runs.

Breaking them down by the number of runners on base, there have been 84 solo shots, 51 with one runner on, 19 with a pair of runners on base and three grand slams. Among the players to hit them with one runner on, Holliday now has two of those 51, with Albert Pujols having the most (nine).

• Robinson was the sixth Cardinals pinch-hitter to homer in a postseason game. The others: Mark McGwire in Game 2 of the 2000 NLDS, J.D. Drew in Game 1 of the '02 NLCS, Eduardo Perez in Game 2 of the '02 NLCS, So Taguchi in Game 3 of the '06 NLDS and Chris Duncan in Game 5 of the '06 NLCS.

• Matt Carpenter drove in the first run of the game with a third-inning double, scored on Holliday's home run, and later added a walk and a stolen base. He was the 25th leadoff hitter to have a postseason game with at least one run, RBI, extra-base hit, steal and walk. Among those 25, Carpenter was the first Cardinals player to do this.

Roger Schlueter is senior researcher for MLB Productions. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.